Hunters: A Trilogy (72 page)

Mike knew it – he’d known it all along.

***

The following morning, after deciding to take the day off, Ken and Jane were lounging under the apple tree and watching Red and Mike. The two of them were walking around the lake and skipping stones across the flat surface of the water. It was a fine day, seeing the bike was missing, and two greasy plates stacked in the sink, Jane had guessed that the two men must have been out on the farm before dawn.

After their own breakfast, she and Ken had jumped into the truck and driven down to join Red and Mike at the lake. They parked the old truck at the foot of the apple tree mound and wandered up to the top where they sat upon the warm grass and looked over towards the windmill. Jane watched the two men walking over to the mill, Mike was looking at the troublesome blade once again, craning his neck upwards and pointing to the end of it, he turned to Red and they appeared to be discussing the problem in some detail.

Mike pointed upwards and then knelt to sketch something in the dust below; he rose to his feet again and made a twisting motion with his hand. Nodding vigorously, Red turned on his heel and went inside the mill, where, after about two minutes, he returned empty-handed. Jane saw Mike clap him on the shoulder as both men made their way to the Harley, which was leaning against the wall of the mill. Mounting up, and with the barking roar of exhaust, they rode over to the apple tree at breakneck speed, Jane heard them laughing as they headed towards her and Ken.

Reaching the top of the mound, Mike slid the bike to a halt. Red hopped off and joined them under tree. Mike grinned, ‘I’m just gonna zip back to the barn, there’s no tools in the mill and we’ve had a great idea about how to fix that bloody sail, once and for all!’ he said, blipping the throttle.

‘If Tori’s back from town, will you bring her when you come back, Mike?’ Red asked, picking a stalk of grass and inserting it into his mouth, grinning widely as he put on his best hillbilly look.

Mike smiled and said he would do just that. ‘Okay, I’ll see you later, guys,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back later…don’t worry about me – I’ll be just fine!’ He smiled at them again and then rode off down the hill. Stopping about a hundred yards away, he turned and looked back. Standing with the bike between his legs, Mike gave them a salute, shouting: ‘It’s all gonna be just fine. You’ll see, just fine forever. I’ll see you around later, my friends!’

He sat back in the saddle, revved the engine, and then amazingly managed to get the old bike into a decent wheel-stand. With the front tyre completely off the ground, Mike roared away on the back wheel. Very casually, he waved with his left hand, let the front wheel back to ground and gave the bike its head. They heard him laughing as he went.

‘Crazy bastard…’ Ken said, and then lay down to listen whilst Red extolled Mike’s riding skills. Jane remained in silence, listening to the young man. After a while, she lay back down next to Ken. Seeing their relaxed postures and sensing that perhaps the couple had need of some discussion, Red decided on a spot of fishing; with a cheery wave, he wandered back down to get a rod from inside the mill.

As they lay there, side-by-side, Ken looked across at his wife. ‘Are you okay, you’ve gone a bit quiet?’ he asked.

She turned her head and looked straight at him, they were only a foot or so apart, and he saw she was serious. Jane said, ‘Yes, I’m fine. But what was up with Mike? That was a bit of a speech, wasn’t it? He’s only going to get some tools or something.’ She sat up, and stared down the hill to where Mike had disappeared. ‘What did he mean by ‘forever’, did you see his eyes when he looked at Red?’

Ken joined her in the sitting position. Together they sat looking down over the lake. After a while he answered her, saying: ‘Yeah, I did see his eyes, and I’ve seen that look on him before. I saw it last time when we were about to go back to Kandahar. It was exactly the same look…you see, the trouble is that Mike knows things that we don’t. He’s in a different league to us when it comes to all of this stuff – George only tells us what we need to know, what we can cope with. Mike knows more than he lets on, of that I’m sure, but I guess we’re just gonna have to wait and see, aren’t we?’ He blew out a soft breath of exasperation and reached over for her hand.

They weren’t going to have to wait long at all.

One hour, if we’re to be precise.

‘Where the hell is he? It’s been nearly an hour now – I’ll bet he’s fiddling with something in the barn, he’s gonna come back here with a whole new design for the bloody thing,’ Ken said, lazily stretching out his arms. He had actually dozed off into a rather pleasant, afternoon nap, before waking with a start. He yawned loudly, sat up and rubbed the back of his head. The skin which covered the plate in his skull still felt as though it had received a jab of anaesthetic, sensitive but almost completely numb.

Red was leaning against the apple tree, crunching on the last of its sweet fruits. They had mostly dropped off by now, or been eaten, but there were still the odd one or two dangling almost out of reach. ‘Do yo’all wants me to go and see what he’s doing? I gotta clean these fish anyways,’ he said, bending down to retrieve said fish, which he then held up proudly.

Ken looked across and yawned again. ‘Yeah, why not?’ he said. ‘But take it easy in the truck, okay?’

Red laughed and then casually walked over to put his catch in the rear of the truck. He was quite familiar with how to use the vehicle; Mike had let him drive it all over the place. He eased his bulk through the driver’s door and pressed the starter. The engine came to life in its usual fuss-free manner; it was the only part of the Spear that was still holding its own these days, the rest of it having seemingly reverted to being just a normal old pickup. Red waved and with only the squeaking of some tired suspension, and a handful of dead fish for company, he trundled away towards the farm. Just like Mike, he didn’t come back.

It was Tori who came for them. About thirty minutes later, and with a face like marble, pure-white marble, she slid the truck to a halt next to the couple who were wandering along the track back to the farm.

‘Hi Tori, we didn’t expect to see you on your own, are those two messing about in the barn again?’ Jane said as she walked over. The floods of tears flowing down Tori’s face stopped her dead. Hurrying towards the truck, Jane asked: ‘Tori, what’s the matter, baby – Tori?’ Seeing the awful expression upon the young woman’s face, she turned to her husband, urgently calling his name.

Ken ran over and just caught the young woman in his arms as she stumbled from the truck. Tori pushed past him and tried to be sick onto the grass. Her dry retches were in vain, with a deep, sobbing intake of breath, she turned and tried to speak.

‘Mike, he’s… I mean, Red has… it’s so terrible, there’s blood everywhere. Mike helped me, but he came back and attacked me. Red… they’ve had a big fight, there’s blood everywhere, lots of blood, Ohhh!’ She almost howled with anguish.

Jane looked at her and then noticed the shoes on Tori’s feet were spattered with blood, in fact, when Jane looked more closely, she noticed that Tori’s bare legs were speckled with the stuff. The collar of her dress was ripped and there was a horrible, purple bruise starting to flower on her neck.

‘Get in!’ Ken’s face had also gone white, but not with fear or anguish. This was the white of a pure, unadulterated, seething fury. He slammed the door closed and waited impatiently until the women had run around and climbed into the passenger side. As their door was still closing, he floored the accelerator and cursed. ‘Fuck!’

The journey back to the farm seemed to take an inordinately long time, once again, Ken had the feeling of being paused somehow – he felt like smashing the steering wheel in an attempt to speed things up. He restrained himself as he had caught a glimpse of the girls, they were both deathly pale and Tori was still making noises like a small animal caught in a trap.

She was also whispering to herself. ‘I never knew this was going to happen, I never knew this was going to happen…’ She repeated the phrase over and over again.

Jane reached across and held her hand tightly. Tori looked up and simply burst into tears again. Her sobbing was one of the most awful sounds that Ken had ever heard. They were wretched, tearing cries that came deep from within her body. Tori sounded as though she was about to scream.

Ken hoped she didn’t as he himself wasn’t too far away from screaming.

His thoughts were going haywire… ‘After all this time, the bastard has still reverted to his normal self! All this time trying to change things, fuck all ever changes, does it? I should bloody know that!’ He gripped the wheel so tightly that he felt something give within its structure. It made a little cracking noise. Ken promised himself: ‘If anything has happened to Mike, then I’m gonna kill that kid, future or no fucking future!’ He reached down into the door pocket and felt for the Beretta, the familiar touch of the weapon helped calm his racing thoughts.

They pulled up to the back gate, Tori had obviously left it open in her haste to come and find them, it had swung back and was sitting half-closed again. Ken used the nose of the truck and pushed it out of the way, before driving up to the house. The fresh gravel crunched like dried bones beneath the tyres as they rolled to a stop next to the porch. It seemed to take forever, mainly because their horrified eyes were transfixed by the carnage that lay scattered before them.

The flower pots were all smashed or upturned, part of the wooden banister rail was snapped clean off, and the large kitchen window was shattered. Jagged shards of glass hung like teeth from its frame. There were bloodied smears and handprints littered across the white paint, several long scarlet drips of the stuff were smeared across the bright yellow kitchen door. Their disbelieving eyes fell upon the two men who lay on the blood-covered floor of the veranda.

Red sat upon the wooden floor with his shoulders against the back door, head resting against its freshly-painted frame. His eyes were closed and he was breathing heavily. He was covered in blood, it ran down from his head and Ken saw a vicious wound just above his right eye. Mike was lying against him and Red was holding him tightly under the arms with his own hands linked. Mike’s head rested against Red’s stomach, arms flung wide under Red’s trunk-like thighs. Red’s knuckles shone tightly with the pressure he was exerting. Mike never moved – he was soaked in blood from the neck down.

Turning his gaze away from the horrific sight of his injured friend, Ken took a long hard stare at Red. Feeling Ken’s gaze burning into him, the giant raised his head and grimaced. Ken, seeing a thick rivulet of fresh blood trickle down the giant’s face, smiled grimly, vicious thoughts pushing to the front of his mind.

‘At least Mike’s made sure that the prick doesn’t walk away without a memento!’ He stepped out of the truck, cocked the Beretta and walked casually over to where the men lay. Ken looked at them and then climbed the first few steps, stopping short of the veranda floor. He raised the pistol, hissing words filled with total menace. ‘Oi, you… fuck-face, this time you aren’t getting a second chance, Red!’ He thumbed the safety catch to ‘fire’ and adopted a two-handed, shooting stance.

Ken was capable of putting a whole magazine of 9mm rounds into a target the size of a man’s palm at a range of fifty yards. Red’s head was a much larger, melon-sized target, one that lay less than twenty feet away.

‘This is a no-brainer, Red,’ he snarled. ‘And in about two seconds you ain’t gonna have no brains to worry about!’ Ken grinned at his own poetic words and raised the weapon into the aim.

Red opened his eyes and looked first at Ken and then down at his own chest, as he opened his mouth to speak a flush of blood and air-bubbles escaped to run down over his chin. ‘I couldn’t stop him,’ he gasped. ‘It was too late, he stabbed me… he’s too strong!’ He gurgled, looked down at his chest, then flopped back against the door and smiled. The gaps between his teeth were filled with blood.

Ken didn’t fall for any distractions this time around. ‘Good! I hope it hurts!’ he growled. ‘Have you killed him, you prick? In fact, I know you have; I can see it, you arsehole! I killed you before and I’m gonna kill you again – say goodbye, you big fuck, bye-bye Red!’ Ken felt the rush of white heat flood his eyes, its arrival washed away all sense of anything.

It was time for Red to die a second time around, end of story.

He took up the trigger-pressure and aimed between the red bastard’s eyes.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Tori screamed, crashing into the back of Ken’s legs. Ken pulled the trigger, the noise of his shot cracking loudly in the heavy atmosphere. The bullet drilled harmlessly into the door frame about ten inches above his target’s bloodied head. Ken stumbled backwards off the steps, very nearly falling onto his backside. Quickly regaining his balance, he swung around and pointed the pistol at Tori – upon seeing the awful expression on his face, the young woman stepped back in horror. Ken stood with his lips drawn back, gritted teeth flanked by bulging cheek muscles, there was a terrible light flashing in the depths of his blazing green eyes.

He barked at her: ‘Do that again and I’ll shoot you first, you have no idea! This whole thing goes back a long way – I owe this shit-head from a long ways back, it looks like he’s killed Mike, for Christ’s sake!’

‘Ken, please just stop! Just stop and listen, will you?’ Jane said, her voice calmly cutting through the terrifying atmosphere.

Ken snapped back: ‘Jane, he’s messed Mike up, we aren’t gonna win this one, it’s all been bollocks. Mike’s bloody dead, by the looks of things!’ He looked at her helplessly.

Tori stood calmly and stared at him with those deep brown eyes.

Ken felt the anger go back into its cave. ‘Okay, fine, I’ll listen…’ he said, ‘but I’m still gonna kill him!’ He stepped back and motioned with his head towards the veranda. ‘Go ahead, help yourselves…’ he growled, angrily.